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The DoD Equipment Transfer program donates used computer equipment to various organizations, though mainly to minority institutions and "historically black colleges and universities." The equipment is generally used in science, math and engineering fields. With this equipment, the less fortunate are able to acquire technological skills which broadens their horizons as people, and additionally prepares them for jobs which require computer literacy.
DoD Equipment Transfer is a member of the "Educational Institutions Partnership Program." This program was implemented in order to allow Federal Agencies to donate their used property to schools in need of technology. This technology can be anything from a computer itself to individual pieces of hardware or software.
The main part of the Net-A-Thon Web site is dedicated to a program called National Educational Technology Initiative. This program strives to provide computers and computer software to schools so that every student will be able to access computers, no matter what the financial state is of their community. By providing these computers, the government promotes computer literacy for children starting at a young age, so that when they become older they will not feel as though the world has technologically evolved without them. With the computers, students will gain access to the Internet in addition to just various software programs.
The Net-A-Thon itself is a telethon/charity auction that takes place twice a year. The program's main goal is to raise money with which they use to provide computers to schools that are lacking in technology. This web site has a small listing covering the different ways a person can get involved, including activities as simple as donating goods all the way to creating logos or even writing publication supporting the program.
The Computer Recycling Center is dedicated to providing students with the computers and technology. With this access, the program hopes that young adults will acquire useful skills and confidence that they will build on during their life. The program has already donated 20,000 computers to various public schools in California. This organization takes computers that other people would find useless and then fixes them and provides them to both high schools and colleges. With these computers, students can obtain technical training on decent equipment that they would not have otherwise had access to. This organization takes any type of hardware as donations: whether the hardware is functional or not.
The Computer Recycling Center is a member of a a national collection organization which is travels around the entire country in a computer recycling campaign. The main goal of the collection organization is to provide computers to schools in communities that cannot afford to provide such equipment for themselves.
Canada's Computers for Schools/Ordinateurs Pour Les Éscoles du Canada
Canada's Computers for Schools is dedicated to donating computers and software to any organization or community in need of technology. This extends all the way from schools to libraries, to territorial governments. They have already placed over 50,000 machines and 40,000 software programs in various parts of Canada. They hope that with these donations kids are getting the opportunity to achieve a level of literacy they would not reach if they did not have access to any technology.
Computer equipment is repaired and refurbished before begin donated. They hope to put over 10,000 computers in into the Canadian community before the year 2000.
Computer Recycling Project, Incorporated
This Computer Recycling Project was created in order to provide computers to people who are being left behind as people in more privileged communities find themselves with access to equipment and the Internet. They believe that supplying computers to underprivileged people can reduce the disparity between their community and technology, and furthermore impact an individual's life and future.
An element of project allows high school kids to take part in repairing equipment for both their own, and their peers' use. Collecting computers and hardware, this program donates technology to schools in "disadvantaged communities." Dedicated to people who are growing up without any access to computers, the objective of the program is to donate computers to organizations that are capable of providing people with training and skills that will keep people technologically literate.
Mindshare aims at serving less fortunate families by providing low cost computers to community organizations. They recognize the need for people to get both access to computers and training in order to be considered for employment, for computer literacy is is becoming a necessity within society.
Mindshare id dedicated to "bridging" the gap between people who want to do something useful with their old computers and the people who could benefit from their use. Their plan is to donate computers and software to organizations that will in turn provide training and access to the machines.
"If just 10% of the computers that are taken out of service each year in California were donated in just three years, California would rise from 50th to first in the ratio of students-to-computers. California schools would average one computer for every 5 students, and school technology would be within one generation of state-of-the-art." -- The Detwiler Foundation
The Detwiler Foundation is dedicated to providing computer equipment to schools in California. These computers are donated from people in the surrounding computer industry who are interested in promoting technical literacy in underprivileged neighborhoods. Computer equipment that is donated to this organization is refurbished before being placed in classrooms. By refurbishing the computers, the program hopes to improve the quality of the equipment that is in schools rather than just trying to provide them with just any equipment.
Students obtain a "double benefit" from this program which allows them to assist the program, repairing many of the computer themselves. The donated computers are repaired in high schools, community colleges, and even prisons, all places where the program provides classes in computer repair. Providing this sort of education in addition to computer literacy education, less fortunate people become educated in the field of computer repair, as well as just obtaining skills for using a computer as a tool.
Computer Recycling (Goodwill Industries of the Redwood Empire)
The Goodwill program that is dedicated to recycling computer equipment, donating it to underprivileged communities.
Share The Technology -- Computer Recycling Project
The Share the Technology Project is dedicated to recycling computers for usage in schools and nonprofit organizations. Located in New Jersey their mission is "to help provide usable computer equipment to schools and nonprofit organizations and help decrease the gap between the technological 'haves' and 'have-nots.'"
Although the project is very young, they have already recycled over 400 computers. Unfortunately, this program is lacking in funds and is going to have to start charging organizations for the computers that it provides.
Force - Foundation for Computer Education
The Force organization recycles computers in India. They note than in 1997 there were approximately one computer for every 13 students in the United States. In India the situation is much worse, and they estimate it to be one computer for every couple thousand students (even in colleges), which has resulted from a lack of funds within schools.
This program aims at distributing computer equipment to schools, in addition to teaching computer skills to less privileged communities. Unlike many of the U.S. organizations who strive to donate decent computers, this one aims at providing any equipment they possibly can. Because the gap is so immense between different communities and technology, they have found that providing even outdated computers makes a huge impact on certain communities.